


Of All the Bad Timings in the World (You Synced with Mine)

by withyouandthemoon



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: All Human, F/M, Klatholine Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 15:14:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15464208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withyouandthemoon/pseuds/withyouandthemoon
Summary: Life is full of unexpected surprises. But never in a million years would Caroline believe that she'd bump into a chance of romance in her way too busy life in the form of an annoyingly attractive (or just plain annoying) artist, all when she was modeling for her best friend Katherine's art class-nude.





	Of All the Bad Timings in the World (You Synced with Mine)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wrecklessrighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrecklessrighter/gifts).



> I decided to try my hand at an All Human AU. All my limited knowledge about the modeling business and the art industry comes from my not-so-thorough google search so please bear with me if you find anything out of place.  
> Hope you enjoy it!

Caroline could feel those eyes burning into her bared back.

It shouldn’t have bothered her this much. After all, being stared at and focused on by a thousand lenses (be it mechanical or biological) from all angles is like the most basic thing in her line of work. You learned to make peace with it, grow into it, or even thrive in it. It was all about the presentation, how you carried yourself in people’s sight.

You’d think a single pair of persistent eyes wouldn’t rattle her like this. Especially considering she wasn’t even facing the direction from which they were boring into her.

And she didn’t think it had much to do with her current state of nudity. Sure this was the first time she’d been an art model but all in all the experience wasn’t as unsettling as she’d thought. She was elevated on a table surrounded by a circle of about twenty students, seated mermaid style, half propped up by some cushions on her left side. Katherine had even arranged a throw around her to cover from abdomen to upper thigh.

The AC was working fine, she was feeling comfortable in her own skin despite the chilling weather outside, and the artistes-to-be were pretty immersed in their own creative work as far as she could tell. She might as well have been a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers, which was totally fine by her.

Caroline had been quite apprehensive at first when her roommate slash best friend Katherine asked her to come model for her art class at the local night school.

“Just because it has ‘model’ in the job description doesn’t mean I’m the person for it.” She’d argued, “I don’t know a thing about art modeling.”

Katherine just gave her one of her classic half eye rolls while pulling off her paint stained T-shirt to wipe at her equally paint stained neck, “what’s there to know about? Here’s your example if you must have one-” she stopped mid-motion with only her blood red silk bra and a pair of boxers on, jutting out her hip, “be still, sans clothes.”

“It’s not that simple!” Caroline huffed, “aren’t art models supposed to be…I don’t know, curvy or something?”

Katherine threw the dirty shirt into the laundry hamper at the corner of their shared living room with a flip of her wrist, “your curves are just fine, Carebear. Plus,” she added with a smirk, “the school’s cutting budget yet again so it doesn’t hurt to have the students use smaller canvases.”

Caroline threw a pillow at her from the sofa, which she dodged effortlessly before winking back, “and can you really afford to say no to the easy money, Miss Crunchy-Bunny?”

She really couldn’t. Not when she had already stooped to being the brand promoter of the local cereal company, aka “cereal girl” in bunny ears who pushed the product at frowning customers at any revenue of the company’s choosing, every other day from 9 to 7.

Thank god the art modeling thing turned out to be better than she expected. She was used to the staring, and the sound of charcoals against paper actually soothed her nerves quite a bit to the point where she was mentally writing her to-do list for the next day, her fingers itching to get to the pen and planner ever present in her purse.

But that itching was nothing compared to the burning sensation on her back. She could sense the intense gaze with every fiber of her being. It wasn’t the regular scrutiny of the art students where they dissect her body into tiny pixels that they rearrange in their head and then with their hands to conjure up the picture of their own inspiration.

No. It was the kind where the eyes roamed over her like incessant little flames, devouring her like marking their own entitled territory. _The predatory gaze_. Caroline snorted inwardly, both annoyed and a little curious about the most-probably-self-crowned alpha male sitting behind her back.

Truth be told, she rarely did get this kind of attention these days. Life as a struggling fashion model wanna-be wasn’t close to as glamorous as everyone outside the business-or herself, a year ago-would have imagined. As her “guy” at the small commercial modeling company she’d signed up with who dished out scraps of work deals like a merciful god once told her, _too many pretty faces, too little heart to care_.

If there was one thing she had learned since she left everything and everyone at home without a back glance for the LA scene, it was that her beauty could be weighed, judged, neglected or discarded, just like cereal.

For the umpteenth time that month, Caroline, with a dismal heart, contemplated the latter part of “go big or go home”.

A small clatter sound on the floor to her right side shook her out of her gloomy thoughts. Keeping her posture as best as she could, Caroline discreetly cast her eyes downward to find a charcoal pencil rolling out from under the table on which she was placed. And along with it the gaze hovering over her back for the past half-hour seemed to start moving.

She noticed the scent before she even heard the approaching footsteps. A calm woodsy base with something pungent, like tobacco or rum. Not the common citrusy smell so often found in men’s cologne. Clearly someone with an impressive taste, and an equally impressive _ego_ to go with it. So when his voice vibrated just beside her ear, she didn’t so much as move her eyeballs-no need to feed him the undeserved satisfaction.

“First time art modeling?”

Annnd a British accent. _Should have figured_.

Careful not to show the effect the perfectly measured cadence did to her body, Caroline whispered her eyes still downcast, “aren’t you here to pick up your pencil?”

“If you insist.” The voice all but purred against her jaw line with a slight hint of chuckle and Caroline felt an unexpected jolt tingling all through her body clad in nothing but cold air. Heat crept up her cheeks when she saw him taking a languid step forward, bending down in slow motion for the pencil, the taut muscles of his back stretching out deliciously under his grey Henley shirt and his tight jeans hugging his perfectly-shaped bottom.

Involuntarily Caroline tucked the throw closer around her body. But it was of no use when the man straightened up right in front of her, his blue-grey eyes setting on her with unveiled amusement, the few necklaces around his slender neck dangling just in her line of sight, tempting her treacherous heart. Caroline had never been more aware of her nakedness ever since she dropped her gown in the center of this classroom.

“Enjoyed the view?” He grinned cheekily.

Caroline offered a fake smile, her eyes glaring at his infuriatingly cute dimples, “not more than you did I’m sure.”

“Indeed I did, on a personal level at least.” He licked his lips sensually as if savoring the sight of her before raising his eyebrows teasingly, “artistically speaking though…”

“What are you getting at?”

“Well, as I’ve speculated, which you’ve yet to confirm before getting distracted by my finer assets,” he met Caroline’s scoff with another smirk, “you are not exactly experienced in your current job.”

“And just how did you come to that very unwelcome assumption?” Caroline gritted her teeth. She would like nothing more than to remove his stupid smug face from her sight (however dreamy that face may be under normal circumstances), but the perfectionist in her demanded an answer to any criticism related to her job.

Seeming to notice her annoyance, the man held out his hands in front of him placatingly, “look, obviously you are better than most amateurs but I have seen enough art models to know you are new at this. You body’s too tense.”

“Excuse me?” Caroline’s whole body tensed up to a new level just hearing those words and she immediately willed herself to loosen up, but she could feel the anger-induced tension still building in her tenfold.

“It’s quite normal actually. People tend to be more self-conscious in their naked forms, which affects the lines of their muscles and their natural fluid quality.” He made a small gesture with the pencil between his long fingers, “a part of the reason why many famous artists used to work with prostitutes, including Vincent Van Gogh.”

Caroline narrowed her eyes, glaring daggers at the damn show-off, “are you seriously comparing me to a _hooker_?”

The slightly dumbfounded look on his face did nothing to appease her.

“Let me get one thing straight. You don’t know me. I don’t care who you are but to you, I’m just the model from your art class, who you should not be playing some silly tricks in order to chat up! And while we’re at it-dropping the pencil? Really? Where are we, junior high?”

Anger flashed through his eyes as he pursed his lips, the smirk still hanging on the corner of his mouth slowly turning cold, “careful, love, I wouldn’t be too sure about the ‘not knowing you’ part.”

Caroline furrowed her brows, equal part indignant and confused, “what does that even mean? Are you threatening me?”

“Oh no, of course not. Just a heads-up that as an artist, I could be quite observant.”

“Yeah? Well what did you observe, Mr. Big-Shot Artist?”

The man quirked an eyebrow, his eyes took leisurely time traipsing all over her body, their calculating glint sending a shiver straight down Caroline’s spine. She wanted to flinch from his imposing figure, only to be stopped by her pride. She was never one to back down, even without clothes on-especially without clothes on.

“Your posture is good, and you clearly have a nice control of your body, which takes a great amount of practice and effort. I’m sensing…former pageant queen of some sort maybe?” The small gasp escaping from her lips betrayed Caroline, putting a hint of triumph in the man’s eyes.

“You are quite responsive to the sounds around you, your skin flushes easily,” he inclined his chin towards her chest, his eyes thankfully remaining on her face but the heat in those now dark blue orbs burned her across the short distance between them, “and considering the fact that you noticed my…attention even when we were not facing each other, I’d say you are quite the sensitive type, even a bit neurotic,” he smirked devilishly, “no offense.”

Disregarding-or maybe spurred on by Caroline’s hard glare, he continued with a shrug, “and judging by the stiffness of your neck and shoulders, your twitching little fingers, as well as the irritable mood and hostile tone, life is wearing you down, and you fear there’s no way out. But,” he released a soft sigh, and for a second wistfulness was shadowing his face, “don’t we all?”

“You think you got me all figured out, huh?” Caroline bit the inside of her mouth, barely containing her fury, “then you must know that I have zero interest in continuing this conversation.”

His face softened a bit at that, something akin to regret thawing in his eyes, “oh come now, don’t be like that.” He gave her a pleading look from under his lashes, as if gauging her reaction, his voice dropping an octave, “to be honest I didn’t get to know you as much as I intended to.”

Caroline ignored the small twinge of her heart at the vulnerability she could somehow detect in his lowered voice. “Sucks to be you then.” She turned her face away, not caring about changing her pose. Most of the students were finishing up anyway, which was probably why they didn’t complain about whoever-he-was blocking her from their view.

He was about to say something more when Katherine sauntered over with her hips swaying, “is there a problem here?” She gave Caroline a concerned look which Caroline returned with a slight nod of assurance.

Turning to the man, Katherine crossed her arms, “okay Mr. Mikaelson, I may have enjoyed your work back there,” Caroline caught a subtle wink she threw her way with bewilderment, “but I certainly don’t appreciate you distracting our model during _class hours_.”

Caroline’s eyes widened in disbelief. _What was that?_

 _Mr. Mikaelson_ , however, seemed quite pleased with the whole situation, exchanging an unreadable look with a grinning Katherine, “of course, Ms. Pierce. I’ll just go finish my…sketch.” And then he, too, threw a wink at Caroline before taking off to his seat.

As soon as he was out of earshot Caroline pulled Katherine close by the lace of her sleeve, “why did you say _that_? And why were you two both winking at me?”

“Hey! This is Chanel!” Katherine hurried to remove Caroline’s hand from the delicate fabric before smirking conspiratorially at her, “someone has a crush on you.”

“What?” Caroline quietly exclaimed, “are you on something right now?”

Katherine rolled her eyes offended, “high or not, I’m never wrong about these things. And it’s not like he’s being subtle about it-you should have seen his work.” She snorted a laugh, “the only thing missing from that drawing is a stamp on your ass that reads ‘reserved’.”

“Great.” Caroline gave her a sour look, “first he compared me to a hooker, and now you are pimping me out.”

“He did what?” Katherine’s whole body was shaking from the suppressed laughter. If she was not in class Caroline was sure she’d be rolling on the floor by now.

“Never mind.” Sighing in exasperation, Caroline muttered, “it’s almost over anyway.”

Katherine poked her freshly-manicured index finger into her chest, her eyes menacing, “you promised me three sessions. Don’t you dare bail on me, Forbes.”

“I’m naked!” Caroline batted her hand away.

“I’m aware.” Katherine gave her a once-over nonchalantly, earning another scoff from Caroline, “though I’ve got to say, Caroline, I’m impressed.” Looking over Caroline’s shoulder, she smirked, “and apparently so is Mr. Mikaelson there.”

Distracted by the conversation with Katherine, Caroline hadn’t realized until then that burning sensation was back. Silent charges ran all over her skin, making her breath quicken and her head swim. A part of her wanted to ask Katherine about him, what he was doing, the look on his face or even the color of his eyes right that second.

Instead she settled for wondering about all those things as well as his drawing of her in the remaining twenty minutes of the class, all while his eyes stayed glued to her, hot and vigorous, evaporating her cell by cell into a ball of shining energy, just like the runway spotlights that she dreamed of almost every night.

* * *

Caroline did a little stretch to alleviate the unexpected soreness of her muscles. She’d already changed back into her own clothes, and was now sitting in one of the chairs a few steps from Katherine while she collected the last few sketches from the students. The job proved more tiresome than Caroline initially anticipated-a different type of tired than her normal jobs but still.

Granted she was mainly working in commercials right now (beggars can’t be choosers and all that), and had only did a few try-outs for fashion gigs, but the most taxing part of those jobs were always the ungodly hours, the long wait, the nonstop changing of backgrounds and outfits and poses, and catering to the whims of practically anyone on set other than her.

Yet the trials of being an art model appeared to be sitting still forever till every part of yourself didn’t feel yours anymore. And, apparently, seeing yourself portrayed on a dozen or more drawings from various angles in the same pose like some freakish clones from a sci-fi movie.

It didn’t feel the same as her photo-shoots. The pictures were always for the public eye, be they printed on a page of a magazine or the packages filling a supermarket rack. They were meant to be skimmed over or even pawed at without much as a second thought, leaving only a glimpse of colorful nonsense in your subconscious to stir up urges of consuming when needed.

But drawings…they seemed much more personal. It both amazed and kind of scared her to amuse the notion that someone had studied every detail of her body until they could recreate her in their mind, that their fingers had caressed every shadow and contour on her figure stilled on a piece of paper. And somehow, when she pictured that “someone”, the face of a certain blue-eyed jerk with a killer physique and insufferable personality popped into her head.

Caroline mentally pinched herself. She should not be thinking of jerks of any kind. She was supposed to review her to-do list that she’d put down on her planner as soon as she had her clothes on and check if there was anything she needed to add. In the next predictably hectic 12 hours she had her daily work-out routine, a movie night with Katherine, a meeting with her “guy” at the agency and a possible try-out for yet another ridiculously bland commercial and a plan to rearrange her broken book case. And she had to make time to call her mom who hadn’t contacted her in a week-which was super odd and worrying-as well as squeezing in a four-hour sleep (the minimum amount for her to maintain a decent image in front of a camera).

She didn’t have the time nor the energy to fantasize about sexy accents or dimples.

Glancing over to find what appeared to be the last student turning in their work to Katherine, Caroline shot up from her seat with her purse in hand ready to go, only to be stopped by a gentle hand grabbing her wrist. She whirled around and feigned surprise, even if she already knew it was him-how she managed to do that she wouldn’t delve.

“Oh, it’s you.” She eyed his hand on her wrist with all the cold judgmental bitchiness she could muster.

His hand lingered a moment before releasing her, a shy smile adorning his rich raspberry lips, “look, I know we’ve started off on the wrong foot, but surely there must be some ways to remedy that.”

“Hmmm…” Caroline tapped a finger on her chin, “I think not. Sorry not sorry.”

She plastered a fake smile on her face and turned to walk away, but he blocked her passage with his broad shoulders, “you are being exceptionally harsh on me, love. If it were anyone else they’d be deeply hurt by your attitude…” he even had the gall to make puppy-dog eyes at her, “however stunning you are.”

Caroline rolled her eyes, “yeah well ‘anyone else’ wouldn’t have insulted me to gain my attention. Where did you learn that move? Douchebag 101?”

He grinned at that, the curl of his lips and the sparkle in his eyes tugging at her despite her best effort to block them all out, “and here I thought we were in junior high.”

Caroline couldn’t stop the small smile from making its stealthy way onto her pursed lips. The guy was smooth, she would give him that-but smooth would not get him anywhere this time. Wiping the smile off her face, she cleared her throat, “then you should probably go on handing in your project to the teacher.”

“And _the teacher_ would very much like that,” there was no way that Katherine just happened to weigh in at that exact moment, not with the all-knowing look and the Cheshire-cat grin on her face, “so she could finally call it a day and go have her happy hour at home.”

The man huffed a laugh, inclining his head at Katherine, “yes of course, sorry for holding you up, Ms. Pierce. But you must understand,” he glanced at Caroline, smirk in place, “some company just makes you forget the time.”

Breath hitched in Caroline’s throat, which she quickly covered with another quiet scoff, but the man had already turned back to a still grinning Katherine, handing her the drawing he’d been holding.

Katherine quirked an eyebrow at the sketch, “you sure work fast.”

“Not fast enough for my liking, for as you can see, it’s in fact not quite finished yet.” His eyes shot to Caroline through hooded lashes, “then again, the subject was much too exquisite to rush through.”

Katherine snorted, “I’ll give you an A plus on your artistic skills, for obvious reasons.” She gestured at the drawing, “but verbal ones? C minus at best.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m only enrolled in your art class, isn’t it?” He retorted with an indifferent smile.

Curiosity got the best of Caroline as she leaned in close to Katherine and took a peek at the sketch. She gasped at her own face staring back at her.

The man wasn’t lying when he said it wasn’t finished-the sketch only caught Caroline’s front from her face to the upper half of her chest, the whole image taking up about half of the paper. But somehow he made her stand out from this uneven distribution of space, her face drawing in all the attention among the large blanks of white. Everything was done with elegant finesse, from the few strands of loose hair fallen from her up-do framing her face, to the slight pout of her lips, to the delicate swell of her breasts.

She was glaring in the drawing, her eyes narrowed and her jaw line hard, but Caroline didn’t think she had ever looked so beautiful. The anger made her face glow, the flames in her eyes burnt bright like stars. In all of her photo-shoots Caroline merely reflected the hundreds of lights shone blindingly on her, while in the brief lines of his sketch she seemed to give off all those light on her own.

_Was that how he saw her?_

Her eyes still widened with awe, Caroline stuttered at Katherine, “but…but I thought you said he drew my back?”

She internally kicked herself. Of all the things crossing her mind that was what she chose to ask? How embarrassingly lame! And from the incredulous borderline ashamed look on Katherine’s face, she clearly agreed with her.

Her self-berating was cut short when he took a step closer to her, his mouth opening and closing a few times as if he was actually nervous, “you’ve voiced more than clear your distaste for my ways of ‘chatting you up’.” He chuckled softly before catching her eyes with his, “but what if I told you…I did it all to get a glimpse of your lovely face?”

Caroline was speechless. He was beyond hot, his smile was cute, and his words were sweet albeit corny as hell, which surprisingly held an unexpected appeal to her, but…

“I’m still your art model.” She deliberately tuned out Katherine’s loud snort in the background.

“Yes, I’m well aware.” His smile turned a bit teasing, but his eyes were more than sincere, “considering I’ve already seen you naked-”

“Yeah, you and other 20 people, big deal.”

“-will you do me the honor of doing this whole thing backwards with me?” Even expecting it, his question still caught Caroline off-guard, “like giving me your name and number?”

His eyes held onto hers like a vice and her mind was melting till she couldn’t find a single word of response. Her head was telling her one thing, her gut was telling her another, neither of which she could decipher in her current state of mind, and her heart just kept doing crazy violent dance moves in oblivion like her on a fifth glass of Margarita.

“Okay I’ve seen enough of this.” Katherine’s light shove startled her out of the stupor, “you two-” she was now standing between the two of them, her finger pointed out at them like a small dagger of annoyance, “never do drama.”

She suddenly grabbed a pencil from her desk, writing something on the sketch she still held in her hand while eyeing them with a bored look, “Klaus, Caroline. Caroline, Klaus. I’m sure it’s nice for you to meet each other. No I don’t need to hear Klaus’ effusive demonstration or Caroline’s feeble denial. Shake hands. Suck face. Just stand there and do nothing. I don’t care.”

Caroline watched in shock as she realized Katherine just wrote her phone number on his- _Klaus’_ drawing of her. More accurately, on drawing-Caroline’s perky right boob, like some drunk-out-of –your-mind tattoo.

“Katherine!” All that blank space and she had to write it _there_? No, strike that-why was she giving out her phone number in the first place?

Katherine didn’t even bother to spare her a glance. She shoved the drawing back into Klaus’ waiting hand, “finish your drawing before the next class, Mr. Mikaelson.”

Klaus looked down with a small genuine smile, his face soft at the sketch in his hands before his eyes landed back on her face, “I do wish you’d pick up, _Caroline_.”

The way her name rolled off his tongue made her knees weak, and her heart was clearly doing shots by now. “I wouldn’t hold my breath for it.” Her voice sounded not nearly as resistant as she intended.

“Don’t worry, love,” Klaus crossed his hands behind his back, looking smug and victorious like he held everything he wanted in the world, “I’m nothing if not persistent.”

* * *

“I still don’t know why we are watching this movie.” Katherine bit into her green apple forcefully, the loud crunch resonating against the soft tunes of _As Time Goes By_.

“Well, let me refresh your memory,” Caroline controlled her breaths between words, her eyes straight to the front fixing on Ingrid Bergman’s flawless face, careful not to let a healthy dose of daily banter with Katherine disrupt her perfect boat pose, “we made a bet. I won. You begrudgingly allowed me to choose what to watch on our movie night. So I chose.”

Katherine snorted, the eye roll evident in her voice, “I still can’t believe they just let you keep that horrendous necklace on in the commercial.”

“They said it helped build a quote ‘satiric ambiance’ unquote. Whatever that means.” Caroline stifled a laugh. It baffled her how a clear joke on Katherine’s part could miraculously work-a necklace with a plastic mini Barbie as a pendant on a men’s suit commercial.

Sometimes her career just felt like a ginormous ludicrous prank show. Or a horror movie, depending on your point of view.

“You know, as crazy as that commercial was, I was more surprised that you actually went through with it.” Katherine took a sip from the wine glass in her other hand, “I kept expecting you’d chicken out at the last minute.”

“Chicken out? Have you met me?” Caroline changed into a downward dog pose, peeking at Katherine through her out-stretched arms and legs, “Caroline Forbes does _not_ quit.”

“Yes she does, if it messes with her meticulous work ethic.” Katherine gave her a pointed look.

Caroline sighed, “it’s just a dumb commercial.” Her voice lowered into a whisper that she wished no one could hear, even herself, “not like I’m going on the runway or anything.”

But she should have gathered from her experience of living with Katherine Pierce for the past year-that woman hears _everything_. “You’d sell a beach house in Santa Monica just to have that commercial wiped off of the face of the earth _when_ you are on the runway.”

If Caroline caught on to the specific punctuation in her words, she didn’t show any signs of acknowledgement.

Truth was, she didn’t have half the confidence that Katherine seemed to have in her these days. It’d been a whole year since she uprooted herself from her old life to make a living in LA, but aside from a bunch of commercials that apparently no one ever paid any resemblance of attention to, she’d come no closer to her dream of becoming a fashion model. She was still waiting tables as a side job, sending out resumes to no avail, working herself up into low-scale anxiety attacks in the wee hours when she should be catching up on a measly couple of hours of sleep-the exact same things she did back home in the two years she wasted just to save up for her move to LA.

She felt like that little plastic ballerina twirling on her childhood favorite music box, going round and round in circles, tricking herself into believing that the grand stage awaits.

But at least the ballerina would forever be stuck in her finely hand-crafted youth. And she didn’t need to pay rent.

“I just didn’t think I’d give anyone at home the chance to say ‘I told you so’.”

Including her mother, who loved Caroline deeply but never found it in her to stand by her daughter’s career choice, which she reminded Caroline with the unconscious disapproving tone in every one of their phone calls since Caroline left home. Thinking about it-Caroline made another mental note to call her mother first thing the next morning.

“What do you care what they might say? You certainly didn’t care what I think about your horrible taste in movies-no bad career choice can ever trump that.”

Caroline bit back a smile at Katherine’s not-so-subtle attempt at changing the subject. She took in a deep breath, and slowly exhaled through her teeth as the yoga instructor taught on YouTube, clearing her head of any troubling thoughts. It was a girl’s movie night after all. “In case you didn’t know, it’s a classic.”

“The Birkin bag is a classic,” another crunch from Katherine’s direction, “this is a pretentious white male fantasy. They think they are totally capable of love, but above it-I call bullshit.”

“Hey! Stop badmouthing my favorite movie, Missy!” Caroline slumped back into a sitting position, “there’s nothing wrong with being a romantic.”

“All this talk about romance and I haven’t seen you go on an actual date for…how long? Uh-uh,” she shut Caroline up with an upheld glass, her wine nearly sloshing out, “it’s been too long if I can’t even remember.”

“I’m just too busy.”

“I’d believe you more if you said you caught syphilis from a quick romp in a back-alley that I don’t know of.” Katherine deadpanned before her face morphed into a salacious smirk, “which, by the way, I’d still see through because there’s no back alley that I don’t know.”

“Ewww!” Caroline made a show to cover up her ears, “for the millionth time Kat I don’t need to hear about any of your sexual encounters.”

“I’d be magnanimous and say that I wouldn’t mind hearing about yours, but unfortunately, you have none.” Katherine shrugged, “the closest thing you have to a relationship is that perverse obsession with your street artist dude.”

“It’s not an obsession. I just love _their_ work.” Caroline felt her chest warm up just thinking about it, her tired body buzzing with a sudden longing to venture out into the cold streets in the middle of the night, just to see how the nameless drawings would faire under the late-autumn moonlight. Yeah, love couldn’t even begin to describe how she felt on this particular subject.

She found the artwork on the vast side walls of an abandoned warehouse when she got lost a few blocks from their apartment when she first got to LA. She’d just started living with Katherine and her phone died before she could look up directions on google map. She was wandering the deserted area spiraling into panic mode in record speed when the vibrant colors and shapes hijacked her shaking view.

Caroline was never too invested in art, passing everything they’d covered in her high school art textbook as old, dying fossils that were bound to collect dust in someone’s creaking attic like the photos of that great-great-great aunt that no one remembered. But what she saw on those walls were different. They screamed _life_. Each line and stroke grew rampant on the silent, hard concrete like resilient vines, spreading and unraveling and digging down roots until the whole space was brimming with their sparkling energy.

The art covered up about one third of the walls with vivid images, no doubt speaking the coded dreams and memories of another, but along her walk admiring them Caroline felt a connection. And it was that connection to what Caroline believed to be a kindred soul that kept her going back, watching in silent joy and anticipation as if grooming her own secret garden as frame by frame the images continued to grow-until it stopped out of the blue six months ago.

Yet still she kept going back-a ritual of which only she, and by extension Katherine, knew.

“Not obsession my ass.” Katherine snorted, draining the last wine from her glass before filling it up again without much deliberation, “you wouldn’t even show me where it is. I had to see the art from the hundreds of pictures you saved in your phone. Though I’ve got to say, your taste in art is at least better than in movie.” She gave a flippant whistle, “the guy’s good and he knows it.”

“And just how do you know it’s a guy?” Caroline snatched the glass from Katherine’s hand, feeling strangely defensive.

“Come on Caroline, you can always tell. How many times have I told you? Art is sex made public,” Katherine pried the glass back, wriggling her eyebrows, “which is why I’m an expertise in both fields.”

“Not everyone makes your kind of art, Kat.” Caroline giggled, knowing full well how Katherine was with her male-or occasionally female-troop of models.

“Few can.” Katherine bit into her apple in haughty nonchalance, “a lot of creeps just paint a bunch of withered vaginas and sell them for thousands of dollars.” She shuddered at the offensive mind-image before turning to Caroline, “not your guy though. No-the monsieur has class. I bet he knows his foreplay.”

Caroline abruptly sprung to her feet in a bout of inexplicable fretfulness, startling both Katherine and herself, “he’s not ‘my guy’! _My guy_ is Ted from the Sunnyside Agency, who is way too fond of hot dogs with extra mustard which he keeps dripping on his shirt, cheap commercials that put girls in costumes that look like they were retrieved from the 80s, and making fun of my ‘cute Victoria’s Secret fantasies’.”

Unable to control her random surge of indignation, she hit pause on the remote control and began frantically pacing around the room.

“What’s with you today?” Katherine seemed unfazed by her outburst, “PMS-ing?”

Caroline rolled her eyes quietly with her back to Katherine, now stopping before her small bookcase beside the window of their living room. The top shelf crashed in the middle of the night two days ago-something with a broken bolt that she still hadn’t got around to fix-giving them quite the fright. With a huff she started to rearrange the fallen books and magazines she’d piled haphazardly on the windowsill back onto the rest of the shelves.

Her lack of a response never deterred Katherine’s sharp tongue, “you know, I didn’t want to say it, but you’ve been weird for quite some time now. Like with that guy from class today.”

Caroline was pretty sure she never wanted to hear the word “guy” again for the rest of her life. But Katherine was unrelenting, turning around on the couch to fully face her now, “he was cute. He was into you. What’s holding you back?”

“I swear Kat if you spill one drop of your wine on the couch there will be hell to pay.” Caroline held the last one from the pile, her guilty pleasure romance of all time, trying hard scanning for a space on the already stuffed shelf to squeeze it in, “and nothing’s holding me back. I just didn’t feel it with him.”

“Your nipples with a hard-on said otherwise”, Katherine ignored her gasp of embarrassment, “now come clean before I make you.”

Caroline whirled around, waving the book at Katherine, her voice shrill with a desperation she didn’t quite understand herself, “the problem is they don’t fit! This book, that guy…none of them fit, okay?” She gestured frantically at the bookcase, “this, this is my life. It’s a hot mess and it’s cramped like hell, and…and I don’t think I have room for anything more.” Her shoulders slumped as she dropped the book in defeat.

“I had it all planned out, you know? I was supposed to meet the right guy when I was back home, we’d build our relationship and declare our love for each other before moving here together, and we’d be able to focus on our respective careers because our love would already be strong enough to handle the pressure of working our asses off in a new city.” But apparently her “right guy” or what she thought he was back then was more attached to their hometown than to her, “only now I’m going on with my plan, alone.”

“Well you don’t have to be.”

“Don’t you get it Kat? The window’s passed!” She stalked back to her yoga mat before the TV, crouching down with her head in hand, “time’s flying by and I’m not getting any younger. If I don’t put myself all in it’ll be too late.”

“Too late for what exactly?” Katherine reached a finger over, tugging at one of her curls like it was all just a game. She batted her hand away in a flash.

“I don’t know,” feeling drained and fed up with this line of questioning, Caroline un-paused the movie, letting the scenes that she knew by heart flow over her like soothing rivulets of water, “which when you think about it is even more stressful because I could’ve already missed it.”

She watched as lights and shadows divided Rick’s ambiguous face on the screen and he mouthed the unforgettable line like a forbidden curse in the nostalgic tune, “of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…” Blue-grey eyes and dimpled smirks flashed through her mind, and she found herself absently wondering how he’d look with a whiskey tumbler in hand.

All of a sudden cold panic gripped her heart, as well as an ominous sense of loss, “what if I walked into the wrong gin joint Kat?”

Katherine threw her a side-glance, “what if you walked into a strip club and pole-danced till you’re seventy?”

“It’s not funny Katherine!”

“What?” Katherine feigned innocence, “you should take that as a compliment. Not everyone can make it as a stripper at that old age.” Holding her accusing glare for a few more seconds, she sighed, moving off the couch to sit next to Caroline on the floor, “the point is, you won’t walk into any joint if you just sit around.”

“But…”

“I can afford to miss one or two of our movie nights. Especially if you keep forcing me to watch _these_.” Katherine made a disgusted face at the screen, which put a small smile on Caroline’s face, “take a chance, Carebear. If not on the guy, on his ass.”

Caroline giggled at that, “he does have a nice ass.”

A mischievous gleam sparkled in Katherine’s eyes as she grabbed her phone off the coffee table, “not so fast young lady. First we google the hell out of Mr. Klaus Mikaelson.” She lightly slapped Caroline on the bottom, earning a high-pitched yelp from the blonde, “now get down there and do a nice little plank so I don’t have to hold my phone. This manicure was really expensive.”

Caroline begrudgingly complied.

* * *

Caroline observed the fancy restaurant from her seat as inconspicuously as possible, trying her best to keep her face neutral while inwardly feeling severely under-dressed. When she accepted the dinner date offer from Klaus with a clipped tone she didn’t imagine it would happen in Beverly Hills-she thought the whole point of him showing up in a nondescript night school in their crappy neighborhood was to keep a low profile.

In order not to look too eager to please, she’d opted for a simple yet classy wine-colored silk blouse and a cute blazer, paired with skinny pants and knee-high boots. In spite of what she learned in that late-night google session with Katherine three nights before, Klaus’ eyes drinking her in like a man dying of thirst when he came to pick her up strongly boosted her ego. But her confidence was waning by the second as the plush velvet cover of the menu tickled her palm.

It didn’t help that Klaus looked devastatingly gorgeous in his black suit, the snug fabric complementing his broad shoulders and chest. The top two buttons of his white shirt were left open, revealing a generous view of his nicely-shaped collar bones, to which Caroline found her eyes repeatedly drawn ever since they sat down by their window seats.

“They have a divine selection of caviar here.” Klaus smiled at her, his voice low and smooth like he was whispering right into her ear, instead of sitting across a table. Caroline noticed that he didn’t even pick up his menu, clearly a regular of the eatery.

“Caviar? Really?” She regretted her words as soon as they were out of her mouth. But well, she was never one to hold her tongue.

Klaus didn’t seem to mind though, the dimples on his cheeks deepening as if amused, “why? Do you have something against it?”

“Don’t tell me you actually like that stuff.” Caroline made a face behind the menu.

To her surprise, Klaus actually paused a second to consider her words, before he softly chuckled, “I suppose it is an acquired taste.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes this time, “yeah, more like imagined. You know people tend to find the food that they paid more money for more delicious? Basically we trick ourselves into thinking that it’s worth it.” She still remembered overhearing on set some cheese company that changed the package of their prime product, doubled the price, and even got a better response from the focus group out of it.

Like she said, sometimes this line of work was just insane.

A hint of admiration warmed Klaus’ eyes, “That may be so on many occasions but I do think there could be exceptions, caviar being one of them. When was the last time you tried it, love?”

Caroline moved the menu higher to hide the faint blush on her face, “three months ago? When it was on sale at the supermarket.” It was 10 dollars a jar, and she had felt seriously ripped-off after the first taste.

“Then you should definitely try it again today.” Klaus smiled, not showing any surprise or derision at her answer, “I still remember my first time experiencing the exquisite taste. It felt like the entire ocean was buzzing on my tongue, cold and clear, fresh and lively. There’s nothing quite like it.”

Caroline’s mouth involuntarily watered, though from his description of the expensive caviar or his delicious accented voice, she couldn’t tell. Somehow that fact irritated her, and she took a sip of her water to wash down the hostility in her voice-at least some of it, “well, not all of us can afford the luxury of dining here on a weekly basis.”

To his credit, Klaus looked a little bashful at her comment. But in the blink of an eye something clicked in his mind and his eyes, though still curved at the corners keeping his smile in place, turned guarded, “you searched me on the internet, didn’t you?”

“Um, technically, Katherine searched you but…” Caroline’s cheeks burned under his scrutiny.

She was not proud of what she did. But to her defense, she didn’t think they’d actually find anything of import. A bunch of photos which turned out to be just weirdoes that had the bad luck to share his ridiculous name, sure; maybe a few silly college prank videos, or even some ranting tweets or blogs from a particularly scorned ex-she’d pegged him for the womanizer type anyway.

But certainly not pages and pages of news reports, reviews and advertisements singing praises to a “Niklaus ‘Klaus’ Mikaelson” who was apparently the rising star of the LA art scene. At the age of 28 he had already had three exhibitions of his own, the last one barely six months ago, where his abstract paintings with “a matured, distinct person style” sold at an average price of five grand a piece-Katherine had let out an inhuman growl at that.

“Son of bitch,” She’d ranted, “that’s ten times what I get for my paintings. On a good day when they aren’t rotting in that goddamn storage room the night school oh-so-graciously granted me!”

Caroline, on the other hand, was just shocked at the fact that he was at a night school _at all_. What was he doing there anyway? Doing some undercover business espionage work so he could buy the school? But didn’t someone like him have minions for the dirty job? And even she didn’t think it would be a wise purchase. Plus…

“It was not like you were being super discreet or anything.” She muttered, feeling a strange need to justify herself, “could’ve at least used an alias.”

“It’s alright, love, no harm done.” Klaus brushed the whole thing off with his signature smirk, but Caroline thought she saw something akin to disappointment flitting through his eyes, “the prospect of lying to you didn’t exactly sit well with my conscience anyway.”

Caroline cleared her throat nervously, “so now that’s out in the open…what brought you to the night school anyway? Nothing to learn there I’m sure.”

“You could say I was looking for an…inspiration of some sort,” Klaus raised his eyes to meet hers, his voice suddenly husky, “which I think I just found the other night.” The look in his eyes enveloped her in a sweltering grasp, the heat surging through her veins, hypnotizing and alarming at the same time.

She was immensely grateful that the waiter chose that moment to come and take their orders.

Caroline chose a simple salad, forgoing the dessert. She didn’t pay close attention to what Klaus ordered, her mind still reeling from their little moment seconds ago. She could almost taste the look he gave her on her tongue, like burning hot lava chocolate that she hadn’t had for three years. And his long dark-blonde eyelashes hovering over his ocean blues were the sprinkles on top, their each tiny movement tickling her nerve endings into transient shocks…

She was pulled out of her own head when she heard Klaus asking for their finest white wine.

“Oh no, water’s fine. I don’t drink alcohol.” She’d given it up three years ago when her mind was made up, just like the chocolate cake. Looking good and healthy took every bit of her self-restraint, but the ordeal paid off, which was all that mattered.

Klaus frowned with concern hearing her rejection, “are you allergic?”

“No,” Caroline drawled, inclining her head slightly to the side, not wanting to go into details in front of the waiter, “let’s just say it clashes with my chosen life style.”

Klaus gave her a look mixed with curiosity and thoughtfulness, but he refrained from commenting, finishing his order with a polite smile. When the waiter finally left, the smile once again turned into a smirk, “water, no alcohol, salad dishes, no dessert-let me guess, you are on yet another one of those trendy diets ‘taking over’ Instagram for a hot ten days.”

Caroline didn’t miss the sarcasm in his tone, “why? Do you have something against it?”

He chuckled at his own words thrown back in his face, “not particularly. Self-discipline is always admirable. Wishful thinking though, not so much.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Do you happen to know that your figure relates more to your genes than your life style? It’s just like natural talent of any kind, predetermined and unmovable by sheer willpower or perspiration.” He raised his eyebrows in an air of superiority, “hardly fair, but true nonetheless.”

The snide mirth dancing in his eyes grated on her nerves, while his voice alone continued to make her stomach do somersaults. She wouldn’t hesitate to open her wallet if they ever make him record one of those “you are a strong powerful woman” bedtime soundtracks-it would be so much better than listening to his offensive remarks.

“So you are telling me your art is all about genius talent and nothing more?” Caroline narrowed her eyes, “Cocky much, Picasso?”

“Personally I’m not a fan of Picasso’s.” Klaus grinned cheekily at her, “he was talented, I won’t deny it, but also over-hyped. The golden times in which he was living uplifted him as much as his own gift, if not more so. A lot of his friends or even paramours were just as artistically capable, but sadly never caught the public eye.”

Caroline’s tone softened at his face lit up by the pure passion when he was talking about art, “you are digressing.”

“To answer your question,” again there was an almost imperceptible pause in Klaus’ speech, like he was doing a little soul-searching just to sate Caroline’s random curiosity, “I think I have just the enough amount of talent to make a splash in the art world through continuous effort. Now if I recall correctly,” he took a sip from his water glass, “you haven’t answered my question either, love.”

She laughed a little, tucking a lock of her meticulously curled hair behind her ear, feeling his attentive eyes glued to her every move as if he was mentally drawing her, “if you must know, it’s more than just a diet.” Seeing the confused look in his eyes, she explained, “I’m a model. I have to watch what I put in my mouth.”

Klaus looked taken aback, “I thought you were just doing a favor for Ms. Pierce.”

It came as no surprise that he easily deduced her relationship with Katherine. Caroline shrugged, “more like I was in need of cash and the school was not picky. I mainly work for commercials, though I’m aspiring to be a fashion model one day, hopefully in the near future.”

She bit her lips at the end of the sentence, refraining from saying anything more. These days it became a rare occurrence where she told anyone about her long-term dream. Dreams were a dime a dozen here in LA, no need to bore anyone with it. She didn’t know why she just exposed that secret part of herself to him, or why she felt so anxious over his possible reaction. It shouldn’t matter either way.

“A fashion model?” The drawled-out words sounded hesitant, but Klaus’ brows knitting tightly together showed clear disapproval.

Apparently it mattered. _A lot_.

“Whoa, watch the judgmental tone.” Caroline snapped at him, “it’s just walking runways, not picking locks.”

“Believe me love, I bear no judgment to any particular line of work-except for politicians or art dealers perhaps-be it modeling or picking locks.” His eyes cast down for a few seconds before locking with Caroline’s, his expression unreadable, “I just thought you smarter than that.”

“I’m sorry, is there something wrong with my hearing? Because you did _not_ seriously just say that!” Caroline was livid, “do I have to thank you for deeming me above the career of _my_ choosing?”

Klaus’ fingers twitched as if trying to reach out to Caroline, but his face hardened under the ruthless glare she was sending him, “It can hardly count as a career if you have to retire in your thirties.”

Caroline scoffed, her insides boiling at his careless words, “yeah, so do athletes, and stunt men, even coders!” She shut him up with a hiss as soon as he opened his lips, “don’t you dare say another word!”

Laughing scornfully, she turned her face outside, not even able to look at him in that moment from the searing rage, “I know what you think. Fashion models, just a bunch of dumb bimbos who do nothing other than primping and simpering. Well guess what? That’s how everybody’s seen me since high school, and how they’ll always see me even if I didn’t leave that one-pony town to pursue my dream. So what if I want to be a fashion model? At least I went for it, which none of them had the gut to do.”

She was almost panting after the rant, her body shaking from the adrenaline rush. Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she was shocked to hear Klaus’ hesitant question in her still-ringing ears, “so…you were a small town girl then?”

Just like that. No apologies, no acknowledging her points, nothing. He just moved the conversation along without any segue. And surprisingly, Caroline let him, somewhat conciliated by the genuine care in his gentle voice, “Mystic Falls, Virginia. As small town as they came.”

“It’s truly brave of you to venture into a whole new world on your own, Caroline.” She slowly turned around to find his smiling eyes now fixated on hers again, the soft twilight from outside the window coloring his blue orbs near green, “though I’m not one bit surprised seeing as how incredibly magnificent you clearly are.”

Caroline snorted, the corners of her lips curling up, “don’t think I’m no longer mad at you just because you give a few empty compliments.”

“It seems that Ms. Pierce was right, I do need to brush up on my verbal skills so you can believe I speak my heart.”

With a roll of her eyes Caroline turned back to face the breathtaking view of a quiet dusk, a million shades of blues and violets shrouding everything in melancholy serenity, while a crescent moon dangled at the end of the dark cerulean sky like a silent prayer.

“It’s beautiful.” She sighed, mesmerized.

“One of my favorite spots in the city.” His breath was dangerously close to her, and suddenly Caroline could imagine warm sea breeze brushing at the tips of her hair when it’s already late October and they were seated inside. “Have you ever been here?”

She lightly shook her head, “like I said, this is not exactly my kind of place.”

“You don’t really need money or status to claim a place, sweetheart.” The way he pronounced the nickname makes her stomach churn, “it’s a matter of what speaks to you in your own tongue. The sun, the moon, the ocean…they don’t cost a penny, yet they make you feel you truly belong.”

“But doesn’t it take more than that to feel rooted?” Caroline observed his profile lit up half by moonlight and half by the reflection of the glass chandelier, feeling something tragically lonely about the way his jaw clenched at her words, “memories? People you love?”

The thought brought a rush of unquenchable nostalgia through her heart, and following it a sense of restlessness gnawing at her, propelling her to check her phone she’d set on the table. Still no new message.

Caroline sighed inwardly. She’d finally got in touch with her mom two days ago, but the phone call was alarmingly rushed, something her mom blamed on her job as the town sheriff as usual. However she couldn’t entirely hide the anxiety and exhaustion from her voice, and despite Caroline’s firm demand that she call her at least once every day, the past two days went without a single ringing from Mystic Falls. Caroline was beyond worried she enlisted her childhood friend Matt to check on her mom, who hadn’t given her an update since they last talked yesterday morning.

Maybe it was nothing, but the ominous sense of foreboding in her gut said otherwise.

“Is something bothering you?”

Caroline gasped, putting her phone down immediately, her face blushing from embarrassment, “no, sorry, no…you were saying?”

Klaus smiled but it felt more like a mask this time, his eyes distanced, “how long have you been in LA, love?”

“About a year, why?”

He pursed his lips for a few seconds, studying her intently with a pensive look, “I was just hoping to know if you’ve discovered your own favorite spots here in the city.”

Vibrant colors over grey and dead walls brought to life appeared in Caroline’s mind, each line and stroke clear as the day she first saw them, bringing a faint smile to her lips. But she didn’t feel right sharing it with Klaus-she barely shared it with Katherine. It was her own secret spot and she wasn’t ready letting anyone in.

“None that I can think of at the moment,” she said with an apologetic smile, her eyes darting to her phone once more, thinking of all those pictures she saved there just to soothe herself even if she didn’t have the time to make an impromptu visit to the warehouse of serendipity, “it’s been crazy ever since I got here. You know, life.” She shook her head paired with a little shrug, putting on her best dramatic suffering face, trying to veer the conversation elsewhere.

Klaus nodded, the imperceptible sarcasm lining his voice sharpening his features, “tell me about it.”

Awkward silence fell upon their table, disorienting and impenetrable, not like the soft dusk outside, but more like an eclipse without forecast. Caroline glanced from the corner of her eyes to see Klaus running a finger around the rim of his glass, his muscles tense as a spring pressed to the bottom, ready to snap at any second.

“You know, it’s most curious-” he started, an almost vicious glint to his eyes, “as someone who claimed to have left their old life behind for a new one, you seem oddly unattached to your second home.”

The jab prickled at the back of Caroline’s heart, meddling with a deep-rooted thorn that she wasn’t even aware was there. She clenched her fists, suppressing the unexpected disturbing pain to scoff at him, “so just because I don't have time dining at fancy restaurants or hitting every trendy scene, now I’m not committed to this life that I worked over 70 hours a week to build for myself? Well sorry to break it to you, but some of us have another task called paying bills!”

In a move that further stoked Caroline’s fury, Klaus leaned back into his seat, peering at her from under his provokingly long eyelashes, “say what you want love, make backhanded attacks at me if you must, but just ask yourself this: within the span of the past month, how many times have you revisited the tempting notion of going home?”

Caroline pursed her lips, not trusting herself to utter a sound. And those wicked rosy lips adorned with a crooked smirk just knew when they’d hit a nerve.

“Fret not, it’s perfectly normal to have second thoughts.” Klaus quirked an eyebrow playfully, “artists, actors, playwrights, models…we are all just wait staff until the great break-through, right? Better do it in the sweet shelter that one can fall back on any minute of one’s choosing.” For some reason the taunting curls of his lips turned bitter, “plus even if you do make it things may turn out not what you once imagined.”

“So we are back to hurling insults at my career choice then?” Caroline tapped her fingers on the table in order to vent out a bit of her agitation, but it proved pointless as her voice got louder by the word, “oh wait, it’s not a Niklaus-Mikaelson-approved career so all this time I must be running around playing house with myself, except mommy's not here to watch me!”

“Careful love, you are making a scene.” Klaus purred in a hushed voice, and even in the fit of rage her toes curled instinctively at the sound, “and those witty comebacks of yours were awfully specific. I do wonder if they’ve made a few appearances in your pretty head before our lovely banter.”

Anger ate its way through Caroline like raw fire, “you know what? This is a mistake. I don't know why I even agreed to go out with you in the first place.”

“You’ve showed your disappointment abundantly clear, what with checking your precious phone once every five minutes.”

His sulking pout almost made Caroline laugh, if she was not consumed by the explosive loathing she currently held towards him, “Well it’s better than facing a snobbish megalomaniac such as you!”

“I see it’s totally fine as long as you are the one doing the insulting.” Klaus huffed, his face still an impenetrable mask save for the slight annoyance around the edges, and Caroline felt the rapacious urge to crash that mask into tiny little pieces.

Taking a deep breath, she met his cold gaze head on, “you know, since you are so fond of psycho-analyzing me, let me at least return the favor.”

Klaus straightened up, his fingers steepling under his chin, “I’m all ears.”

Caroline held out her own fingers to count down numbers for effect, “for starters, the other night at the art class, you went out of your way to draw my face instead of my very draw-able back, which I specifically work on three times a week, because you thought you were above everyone else and the rules don't apply to you.”

The raise of his eyebrows silently prompted her to go on, “You approached me in the middle of the class when I was naked, because you don't know how to make connections like a normal person, so you ambushed me when I appeared the most vulnerable.”

Klaus’ lips twitched in an attempt to defend himself, but Caroline didn’t leave him a chance, the words shooting out of her mouth like bullets, “You thought you could impress me with your smart little drawing, but it just shows how little you value it all. Does your art mean anything to you? Or is it just a trick to get you fame and fortune?”

But it seemed Klaus was bullet-proof as he fired back without a change in his expression, “says the girl who is dying to make a name for herself on the runway, where everyone tends to wear fame and fortune as a substitute for their scanty clothes, or lack thereof.”

“At least I put my heart into my job, which is more than can be said about you.” At last she drew blood, as Klaus’ jaw clenched and fingers stiffened, a storm brewing in his downcast eyes. Caroline just smirked, “yeah, I saw your paintings. And if you can honestly say that you are proud of those self-repeating, meaningless patterns that people bought just to polish their living rooms for a dinner party, then you are even less of an artist than I thought.”

Caroline bit the inside of her mousth, careful not to let her poker face slide. She was bluffing, just copying some of Katherine’s comments that she could still remember, as all she felt towards those steeply-priced paintings that showed up in their search results was indifference-but Klaus didn’t need to know that. Still, the dark wounded look on his face made her almost regret her ruthless words for a split second, until aggression erased all traces of hurt from his eyes.

“What do you know about art?” Klaus gave her a careless once-over, “that is, assuming you paid _some_ attention to your high school art classes?”

Caroline bristled, “maybe not much, but like you said, it’s more about what speaks to you. And this,” before she knew it, she had already flipped open one of the warehouse pictures in her phone and pushed it across the table to Klaus in a swift move, “speaks to me a thousand times more than your so-called genius.”

He turned his mocking eyes down at the picture and visibly froze. Caroline didn’t miss the widening of his eyes and the instant softening of his jaw line, but his whole face remained indecipherable to her. For a moment he looked like he was staring into a mirror for the first time in his life. Tangling in his eyes were endless strands of revelation, skepticism and wistfulness.

Just then the waiter brought out their appetizers, but suffice it to say Caroline had long lost her appetite. She snatched her phone back from a silent Klaus, standing up with a loud screech from her chair, “I think we are done here. Enjoy your caviar.”

With that she left their table without a backward glance, her back straight, her hips swaying, the bounce of her steps right on the beats playing in her head, feeling strangely empowered with all the eyes in the big hall glued to her.

A tiniest part of her couldn’t help but wonder if Klaus’ were one of them.

* * *

Ever since she stepped foot into the modeling industry, Caroline was used to rejection of all kinds. Face-to-face, on the phone, via email; straight-up ghosting, “we’ll call you” and then ghosting, no ghosting but repeating the same platitudes for a thousand times, no ghosting no reaction at all…you name it.

But Caroline took pride in being one of the tough cookies. Not only was she used to rejection, she trained herself to deal with rejection by not taking it lying down, which was why she hadn’t stopped sending her headshots to all the fashion-oriented model agencies across LA even if the majority of them had already turned her down, some more than once.

Which was also why she talked the corporate representative of “that dumb cereal company” (yes, that was exactly how she referred to it in her head) into releasing her from the role of Miss Crunchy Bunny three hours early that day so she could make this phone call within business hour, even if Ted from the Sunnyside Agency, aka her _guy_ , had called her “honey” in that insufferable, deflating, faux-sympathetic tone when she’d asked him to make the contact on her behalf.

She knew all the reasons Ted thought her out of her daydreaming mind for wanting to land the Whitmore’s spring collection gig. Though Instagram-based, they were a rising star in young women’s clothing line and possibly the next up-and-coming fashion icon, while she was a nameless newbie with a year’s worth of experience working in nameless commercials, which ironically was even worse than if she’d been freshly out of her southern hometown. She hadn’t signed up with a proper agency, had next-to-zero connection in the field, and had never modeled for any fashion brands. Plus she got the news too late-it’d been a week since they put out the ad, enough time for them to find what they wanted along with 10 back-ups.

All in all, Caroline’s chances were slim to none. But she had to start somewhere-something she always reminded herself in these situations.

With great effort and some ingenuity on her part that she would deny without a blink if asked, she managed to get the phone number of the person in charge of hiring. She’d already sent her resume with head-shots, she just needed an audition, which was proving even more difficult than she’d braced herself for.

“Look Amanda, whatever I tell you on the phone you won’t get the confirmation from my head-shots.” She clutched her phone tighter in her palm, carefully controlling her breathing to appear confident but courteous, without a hint of her desperation seeping through, “I believe you will see what you’re looking for when we meet in person.”

Amanda, with all due respect, just sounded bored and lethargic, “we are very grateful for your interest in us, Ms. Forbes, and we would be more than happy to include your talent should the need arise. But the list of hirings for our spring collection is almost full at this point, as I’m sure you can understand.”

Caroline cursed under her breath. The big agencies must have already sent in their clients. She quickly weighed her options in her head, but giving up was not one of them, “Amanda, it would mean a lot to me if you could reconsider. I may not have any of the renowned agencies to guarantee my potential, but my personal style happens to be the perfect match for the image and concept of your brand, and I know I’m the best person to present your spring collection.”

“I’m sorry Ms. Forbes, but-” She didn’t have the chance to let out her disheartening sigh before her phone was snatched out of her hand, startling her to shoot up from the street-side bench she was occupying.

Standing in front of her with her phone and a smug smile both reaching his ears was none other than the person she’d left alone at Beverly Hills a week ago. He was back into his casual clothes, the Henley and jeans accentuating all the right plains and curves of his body. His eyes were brought out by the clear blue autumn sky and for a few seconds Caroline actually felt jealousy towards her own phone for getting a feel of his stubbled cheek, when she realized with a gasp that she never got to hang up.

His next words confirmed her reason for panic, “just a minute Amanda, this is Klaus Mikaelson from Mikaelson and Co.,” the charm was laid on thick in his hypnotizing voice and extra prominent accent, “yes, I’m representing Ms. Forbes.”

Caroline’s jaw almost fell off as she listened to his side of the conversation, and as soon as she processed what was going on she lunged for him to get her phone back. Klaus, obviously expecting the move, quickly dashed to the other side of the bench to block Caroline’s attempt, all the while smiling and nodding into the phone.

“Of course, I fully understand.” He tilted his head to the side, his eyes landing on her with sparkling mischief, “well Caroline was just being prudent, seeing as she wasn’t informed that our contract had been finalized just this morning. Yes, a mere understanding that’s most easy to clear, I’m sure.”

If her eyes widened one bit more Caroline could swear her eyeballs would drop out of their sockets. She stalked to Klaus’ side ready to yell at him in his other ear, but the bastard had the nerve to shush her with a single finger to his very distracting lips, which were now curling up into a familiar smirk.

“Indeed we were. Such a hidden gem, she was.” Caroline’s heart skipped a bit at his words, then started hammering as she saw the unveiled adoration shining in his eyes. “Better late than never, am I right? That was exactly what I said when we discovered Caroline.”

The way her name rolled off his tongue gave her shivers, and Caroline had to pinch herself to stay focused on the ongoing conversation.

“She’s more than excited. Yeah, she’s been a fan for years.” Caroline could only assume it was going well judging by the bits and pieces she heard, but his next words prompted a silent squeal out of her throat, “tomorrow, 2 p.m., perfect. I’ll make sure to remind her.”

She was holding her breath for him to end the call but her mind was already send reeling. Was it for real? Did she make it? Had Klaus Mikaelson just got her her first ever fashion gig? Question after question swirled in her mind and she barely heard how the phone call went down from there until suddenly her phone was handed back to her.

Caroline looked up at him with her heart in throat, but a gentle smile from Klaus was all she needed to know for sure.

She was going to the audition.

For a solid five minutes her mind was sent into overdrive with the excitement and happiness shooting fireworks inside her. She’d screamed and clapped and jumped up and down like crazy, said a thousand “oh my god”s, maybe did a bit of her dorky victory dance that Katherine had sworn to murder her on sight if she ever saw her doing, which she wasn’t too sure because she wasn’t even registering what she was doing in the moment of pure unadulterated joy.

What she did notice though, was Klaus’ eyes dancing with her like the little blue flames she’d seen on the movie _Brave_ (another guilty pleasure of hers that she intended to take to her grave). Every time she blinked to remind herself it wasn’t just a dream, every time she twirled in her unparalleled glee, his eyes were always there with her, quietly smiling and sparkling in the softest way she could imagine.

Like the whole universe was distilled into the laughing, squealing, glowing mess that was her, and her alone.

When Caroline finally calmed down and finished putting the audition time into her phone calendar, she looked up to find Klaus still standing there watching her with that warm smile, his eyebrows quirking teasingly at Caroline when she shyly cleared her throat.

“So um…I guess a ‘thank you’ is in order.”

He slightly tilted his head to the side, watching her intently as his voice dropped almost to a whisper, “it was a pleasure to help, Caroline.”

The blush on her cheeks burned a few degrees higher at the distinct timbre of his velvety voice when addressing her by the name. Caroline tucked a strand of her unruly hair behind her ear, peeking at him through her lashes, “still, I was almost convinced I wouldn’t get the job, but hey…you swooped in and saved the day.” She was aiming for cheerful but that came out more bitter than she thought.

Klaus studied her face for a few seconds, his strong arm coming up to hover over the small of her back, guiding her to sit with him on the bench before he locked gaze with her, “as egotistical as I am, which you’ve already pointed out several times,” they shared a chuckle at that, “I can’t take full credit for this small victory of yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it could be anyone. They just needed to hear the voice of authority to take anything seriously, and in your case that means a manager of some sort. Ms. Pierce could probably play the part just as well,” he let out a small sigh, “though I have to admit it works more effectively when you are male.”

Caroline nodded solemnly, knowing he was being honest with her. Her brows then furrowed as an idea struck her, “how did you know all these things?” He was way too smooth on the phone for it to just be a spur-of-the-moment improvisation-almost like he’d done it before.

Klaus grinned at her insightfulness, “believe it or not, I faced the same predicament when I first came to the US as a starving artist.” His dimples flashed as his eyes looked somewhere far away in nostalgia, “I got a job as an assistant at an art gallery in New York, but with no connections or references I couldn’t find anyone to represent me. So here entered Mr. Wilmore,” he turned back to Caroline, a puckish smirk curling his lips as he shifted into a flawless American accent, “manager of striving young artists, and long-term connoisseur of whiskeys.”

“Holy shit!” Caroline gaped at him, “it actually worked?”

“It worked for you, didn’t it?”

Caroline laughed, still giddy thinking about the phone call, “yeah, you nailed it.”

“You did everything you could, love, and you were brilliant from the little I heard on the sideline. I just gave her the final push, which she shouldn’t have needed in the first place if not for the cockamamie rules of the business.”

“ _Cockamamie_? Seriously?” She couldn’t hold in the giggle.

Klaus sucked in his lips for a second, shy smile on his face, and the whole scene brushed on Caroline’s heart like a feather, “yes, cockamamie, for lack of a better word. Which was part of the reason why…” His tone turned hesitant, “my reaction was less than desirable when I first heard about your career.”

“Whatever concerns I may hold,” he inhaled deeply, his eyes large from nervousness, “it was wrong of me to have behaved that way, Caroline, and for that I apologize.”

“Wow.” Caroline blinked a few times, at a loss for speech. With all the excitement going on today she’d almost forgot their disastrous last encounter. She shook her head, laughing a little to lighten the mood, “well I can’t exactly stay mad at you after you eavesdropped on my private conversation, took away my phone and took over said conversation without my consent now, can I?”

Laugh vibrated from his chest, “baby steps I’m afraid. But I must say,” he licked his lips, “after seeing you in business mode today, I found my previous concerns quite ill-founded.”

Caroline raised an eyebrow, “is this where you give me another one of your inappropriate compliments?”

“You don't need my compliments, love, but you have my admiration all the same.”

Caroline felt the irresistible tingling all over her body whenever he was staring at her like that, hot and intense till their surroundings started to fade away, “are you always this...slick and suave with girls?”

Klaus tilted his head, eyeing her with amusement, “now who's giving out inappropriate compliments? But since I seem to be back in your good graces now,” he stood up and held out his arm for her with old-fashioned flair, “what do you say we get out of here for an impromptu second date?”

“Who said the first date even counted?” Caroline snorted, but wound her hand around his arm nonetheless as she followed suit.

“It counted for me.”

Caroline didn’t think she could shiver from warmth. But she just did, and the feeling was divine just like the image of a smiling Klaus in the ever-flowing shines of the evening sun.

* * *

“Why Mr. Wilmore?” Caroline blurted out the question before she registered how random it sounded.

She blamed it on the tipsy state of her brain. After all, she’d risked the insane amount of calories and shared a few bites of Klaus’ risotto and even a spoonful of tiramisu when they dined at the cozy little Italian bistro.

“Just a bite,” Klaus had crooned at her with his damnable accent, “I promise you it’ll be worth it.”

Indeed it did. Several blocks into their after-dinner walk, and Caroline could still feel her brain cells working themselves into a sweet frenzy, high on the chocolate and cheese, so much so that she’d remembered the tiniest detail he’d revealed in their conversation a good three hours ago.

But Klaus answered the question without a pause, “it was one of the many aliases used by the Count of Monte Cristo in the book.”

“Got a bit of a revenge scheme going on there?” Caroline gave a teasing side glance.

Klaus chuckled, “you have to understand I was younger then, about the same age as you.”

Caroline nodded silently, not interrupting. They’d shared quite a bit of personal experiences over dinner, but the topic never came up about how Klaus had ended up on a completely strange continent to start a new life, something Caroline didn’t think was a mere coincidence, but more purposeful dodging on Klaus’ part.

“To put it short, my family wasn’t very supportive of my artistic pursuits.” Klaus sighed, his eyes darkening briefly, “my father called it a waste of time and threatened to disown me if I insisted on being an artist. So I made it easier for him and packed my bag. I used up all my saved allowance for a ticket to the States.” He huffed a laugh, “I thought an ocean in between could cut all ties.”

From the dim look on his face it probably didn’t, but still Caroline remained silent for him to continue, the cadence of his voice intriguing beyond comprehension.

“The assistant job paid not nearly enough.” Klaus shrugged, “I shared a shoe box of an apartment with a mate. I remember one winter when the heating broke, it was the end of the month, and we couldn’t even spare enough to tip the super so he could fix it.”

Caroline understood the feeling. She’d probably end up on the street if not for Katherine who lent a roof on her head. But no need to dwell on it-a sentiment she just knew Klaus shared, so she just responded with a smirk, “is that why you relocated to LA?”

His rich laugh felt like the best sound she’d ever heard in her life, “one of the many reasons. But the point is…it was a rough period, and I was eager to prove myself. Thus, Mr. Wilmore.”

“Hmmm…so how come you didn’t use that alias at the night school?”

“Klaus Wilmore doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?” Klaus winked at her, “It lacks the _pizzazz_.”

He was clearly teasing her, because there was no way that word existed in Niklaus Mikaelson’s refined British vocabulary-he must have borrowed it from her animated speech during their dinner. The thought put a secret smile to the corner of Caroline’s mouth despite the half-hearted scoff she threw his way.

“You never did answer me though,” she asked after a short silence, “what were you doing at the night school?” She and Katherine had made a long list of speculations by that time, the content growing weirder by the day.

“I thought we’ve covered that last time.” The casual smile didn’t leave Klaus’ face, but Caroline could tell from the way his eyelashes lowered and his lips pursed that he was trying to avoid the topic, and she was having none of it.

“You sure about that? Because, I don’t know, I thought artists go to Tahiti for inspiration, not some nameless night school with shitty lighting.” She huffed at his surprised look, sticking her chin out, “and yeah, I did pay _some_ attention in my high school art classes.” And it didn’t hurt to have an artist as a roommate who had a snide remark reserved for any artist in existence, but she held that information to herself, “but don’t even try to deflect!”

Klaus sighed, exasperated at her insistence, “fine, if you must know, I’ve hit an artist’s block, or whatever you call it.” He ran a hand through his soft curls, “I thought perhaps going back to beginner level art classes could help me remember what it felt like when I first started.”

“But why not going forward?” Caroline was confused, “like, take a vacation, meet new people, break out of your comfort zone? I’m not saying the night school isn’t a new scene, but I didn’t see you interacting with anyone.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what _is_ it about?” Caroline threw her hands in the air, her patience running thin. It’s like pulling teeth with him.

Klaus didn’t respond, his eyes fixing on anything but her, his face turned into the shadows. The silence between them grew into a booming pressure and Caroline began to feel hard to breathe. She felt rejected somehow, cold sadness gripping at her heart. Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her coat, Caroline’s pace slowed to a halt.

But Klaus sensed it instantly like they were physically connected, his body whirling around to face her. She could hear his deep sigh just above her ear, and her stomach fluttered at the bone-weakening sound.

“Truth be told, I haven’t quite figured it out myself. My art is…lucrative, as you can see,” his laugh sounded hollow, “but nothing more. And it scares me that I’m losing that passion in which I’ve always prided myself.”

Caroline pictured herself losing that raw passion about modeling. Not feeling her heart quicken and her skin flush at the lights and sounds on stage. Not feeling the anticipation about the crowd waiting for her appearance. Not feeling the smile on her own face when she made the first step. She shuddered at the bleak prospect.

“Can I ask you how you chose your creative style?” Caroline uttered the question that she’d been harboring ever since she saw Klaus’ paintings on line. She could be wrong, but they just didn’t feel very…Klaus. They didn’t sing like his eyes, they didn’t tell like his smiles, they didn’t even hide little secrets like his adorable dimples.

If she had to take a guess at what Klaus’ paintings would be like…Caroline pushed the vibrant images filling her phone out of her mind.

“Well…” Klaus contemplated her unexpected question, “I didn’t. The market chose. I deliver.”

“You see? That’s your problem!” Caroline jumped up at her sudden revelation, the move at last drawing a laugh from Klaus. Yet Caroline was far from satisfied, “I’m being serious! You are an artist, you don’t have to give people what they want. That’s like, _my_ job.”

Klaus chuckled at her almost comic expressions, sighing dramatically as he resumed their walk, “alas, to the devils I sold my soul.”

“At least you’ve still got your talent.” Caroline followed him, this time her tone light as her steps.

“Why Ms. Forbes, is that jealousy I detect in your voice?”

Caroline rolled her eyes, “don’t flatter yourself. But it’s true,” she nodded matter-of-factly, “I’ve never been the talented type. And it’s fine, really. Everything I've achieved, I achieved through hard work. That's something nobody can take away from me.”

Growing up she’d been bothered by her mediocrity, always intimated in the face of those kids who were born with the aptitude to ace everything at the first try. But not anymore. Not when she’d built a life for herself far away from home.

And even if it turned out not for her she’d at least know there was nothing more she could do.

“How do you do it?” Klaus stuttered a bit at her confused look, his head tilted to the side, little creases forming between his eyebrows as if he was trying with all his might to figure her out, “you’re…you’re so sure about this, about what you want. What if it isn’t what it appears to be?”

The question wasn’t really about her, that much Caroline knew; but the funny thing was, she probably couldn’t find a question more directed at her if she tried, and at that moment, she happened to be ready to answer.

“To be honest, I don't know what will happen tomorrow. Maybe I make it, maybe I don’t.” She bit her lips, trying to put her tumbling thoughts into words, “it's kind of like the stage, you know? You go on there and the lights blind you. Beyond that it's all dark. It can be so scary sometimes.” A smile graced her troubled lips thinking about how far she’d come since she took the leap of faith, “but that's the beauty of it all-sometimes you just have to whip up a smile and march on.”

Their pace once again slowed down as they entered a small square on the side of the road, the fountain at display in the center of the square still sprouting two lines of winding, glowing streams, forming an archway in the cool night air.

Breathing in the refreshing scent of water, Caroline smiled as she felt the familiar scorching sensation that she’d come to associate with Klaus’ intense gaze. It may be from the moisture saturating her lungs but Caroline’s heart swelled, tender to the touch, as emotions that she’d not yet sorted out took the chance to make their incessant assault.

“What?” She turned to face him, instantly drowned in the depth of those pools of sapphire that seemed endless absorbing all the streetlight.

“Have I told you that you take my breath away by simply being you, Caroline?”

Caroline’s eyes widened as his hand reached over to brush away a drop of water splashed on her cheekbone, the spot where their skin came into contact freezing before turning white hot, then cooling down in a flash as his fingers retreated. It was like the four seasons tucked into one single touch, overwhelming all her senses in just one fleeting second.

For the second time that evening she felt a drunken-like giddiness, something she’d only ever experienced under the focus of spotlights after she quit alcohol. A sudden urge burnt inside her like fire, making her bold and adventurous.

“If real life Caroline can already make you feel that way,” she leaned over to breathe into his ear, “stage Caroline will blow. Your. Mind.”

Not waiting to savor his quiet gasp, she took off her coat and threw it into Klaus’ hands, walking backwards till she reached the other side of the fountain, all the while staring into his wonderstruck face with the most radiant smile.

Taking off her heels, she did a start pose before stepping into the water-formed archway of the fountain on her tiptoes. The water under her feet was cold but Caroline barely registered it. She was on stage, she was on the freaking runway, and nothing could stop her until she’d made her round, not the absence of music, not her brazen heart that warranted ten speeding tickets, not the thick mist floating between her and her only audience.

And even through that mist and the countless beams of light it was reflecting, she could still feel his eyes on her, piercing as a lightning bolt that left you changed for life and soft as a midnight caress that vowed to stay true. Caroline had read about a million and one methods on how to engage her audiences but all fell flat as the easiest, most natural way just presented itself-

She would simply think of them as the man watching her march through a fountain on an October night, whose gaze made the short walk feel like flying free.

And when she stepped out of the archway right into the warm coat and soft smile that Klaus was holding out for her, Caroline felt like all the scattered parts of her life were finally fitting into each other seamlessly.

* * *

How long did it take for someone's life to teeter to the side, and you just watched as everything started sliding down into void with helpless frightened eyes?

There should be some kind of equation for this. Take your level of contentment with your current life events, and the amount of faith you put in striving under pressure, then throw in a few indexes about expectations, mental status, sense of security and self-worth and whatever random elements and there you should have it. The exact amount of time for it to spiral into an unsolvable mess.

For Caroline, that amount of time was five minutes.

She was lounging on the couch with a morning cup of coffee, humming her favorite song while refreshing the webpage on her laptop screen every few minutes.

Katherine plodded past her with a grunt, “it’s been two weeks. If you don't stop being this chipper I'll have to kick you out.”

Caroline laughed, “no you won't. You love me.”

Katherine rolled her eyes, flopping down beside Caroline, “yeah apparently I love all things that are likely to kill me. Pills with overdose, sex with heart attack, and you with your lethal positivity.”

“Lethal positivity,” Caroline tasted the phrase on her tongue, hitting refresh again with an extra bounce to her finger, “that could be the name of my band.”

“Keep dreaming, Forbes. I’d see you in an orgy before I see you in a band.” Ignoring Caroline who was sticking her tongue out at her, Katherine glanced at the screen, “not out yet?”

“No, but it should be any minute now.”

Caroline was right in her judgment about Whitmore’s-she was the perfect match for their style. She crushed the audition with flying colors, and the actual photo-shoot went more than smoothly. Their first round of promotion for the spring collection was set for 8 o'clock sharp that morning, for which Caroline felt ten times the excitement she'd experienced when she received the check.

“Aw, look at our sweet little Carebear. The perfect job, the not so perfect man,” Katherine smirked, “who'd have thought?”

“It was just two dates.” Caroline took a sip of her coffee, trying to hide the smile creeping up her face, “it could go anywhere.”

She hadn’t seen Klaus since the day he got her the audition, what with juggling her three different work schedules and checking on her mom whenever she got a scrap of free time.

To Caroline’s utter relief, she was back in contact with her mom shortly after Matt called, and their answers combined managed to put her anxious heart to rest. Her mom was just being her mom, throwing herself into work and constantly forgetting to check her phone. Since then they’d both made an effort to keep in touch. The time difference was still a bitch, but this new routine they’d established greatly steadied Caroline’s mindset.

And as reluctant as she was to admit, so did Klaus. Though they hadn’t shared words for the past two weeks, the sweet hopeful look on his face when they last parted ways was constantly on display in her head.

“Will I be hearing you gushing about the successful audition on our next date?” He’d asked her down the building of her apartment, moonlight brushing over his delectable features.

She’d feigned offence at his presumptuousness, but agreed with a soft peck on his stubbled cheek before rushing upstairs, the electric shock on her lips leaving their lingering effect for days.

“Whatever you say, do _not_ make googly eyes at each other at my class tonight.” Katherine’s voice pulled her out of her memories, “but you can keep the daydreaming though. Gives you a sexy vibe.”

“Hey! I resent that.” Caroline glared at her before she raised her chin smugly, “I’m sexy all the time.”

“In someone’s eyes more than others’.” Katherine snorted a laugh, “which reminds me, Mr. Mikaelson still hasn’t handed in his last drawing of you-talking about attached. I’m seriously considering failing him.”

The news surprised Caroline a little, but she couldn’t help but imagining him finishing the drawing at home in an hour and then staring at it for days or even weeks, comparing each line of her face with the newly-acquired memories, too fascinated to let it go.

“You know Kat,” she fingered the rim of her coffee cup, “I think this could actually work. I mean, there will be difficulties, tons of them, I’m still going to focus on my career and he has to deal with…whatever problem he has,” she stopped herself before divulging Klaus’ secret, “but I have a good feeling about it.”

“Good.” A rare genuine smile warmed Katherine’s eyes before she turned a bossy finger toward the laptop, “now go refresh your webpage. I don’t have all morning to sit here.”

Caroline shook her head at the brunette before hitting the button.

Following the crisp click sound came the promotion picture that she’d vividly remembered. So they were going with the sunflower one. Cute choice. The background was just as she imagined, the skirt of the long lacy dress flowing perfectly midair (courtesy of a dozen fans blowing like crazy but who cares), the lighting bright but soft with a golden hue, and the model smiling-

That was when she froze.

The blonde standing in the middle of the picture with a radiant smile was definitely _not_ her.

“But how…”

She couldn’t understand it. She went through a whole day of endless shooting. She changed her outfits a thousand times in that dingy little dressing room, she fixed her own make-up, she smiled until her face was numb and the poses she went through could fit a 500-page book. There was no way they could just discard her effort like that…could they?

Katherine jumped up in a flash to hover over the screen, “wait? They changed you? Without even a warning? That was one hell of a dick move.”

“Yeah…I guess they did.” That tiny weeny whisper didn’t sound like her voice. A part of her wanted to rave and rant like Katherine did, but something was blocking her throat and holding her hostage on their old squeaky couch, staring at a face that was not hers unable to cast her eyes away.

Katherine enveloped her in a brief hug, rubbing her back a little forcefully, “I’m so sorry, Caroline.” She released her to once again examine the picture, giving out a loud huff, “those people must be blind out of their minds. That chick’s nowhere near as good as you.”

Caroline didn’t reply, knowing that Katherine wasn’t exactly unbiased on the matter. The other model in her spot was just as good as she. But that was the problem. The thorn that had been digging in the deepest layers of her heart, the nameless fear that haunted her subconscious all this time.

She wondered if she would feel a smidgen of comfort if the girl was better, worse, just…anything different than her. Yet as it was she appeared to be just another blonde white girl with a sweet face, nice posture, average-sized breasts and a hidden ambition. The few half-hearted feedbacks she’d got from the dozens of agencies that rejected her refluxed through her mind, flooding her with the one weakness that she could not fix no matter how hard she tried.

Caroline was not special, or unique, or unorthodox. She was _interchangeable_.

She felt cornered by the stares shooting at her from both sides, the worried one from Katherine, and the empty one from _Not_ -Caroline. She didn’t know what to say, or how to react. She was a lost soul trapped in this painfully mediocre husk of hers.

The sudden ringing of her phone granted her seconds of relief, before the caller ID added another layer of worry and bewilderment to her mind that was still in shock.

“Matt?”

“Caroline…I need you to stay calm for this.”

The slight tremble in his voice almost stopped her heart, “Matt…What’s wrong?” Realization hit her like a freezing snow storm, “Is it my mom?”

“Listen Caroline…she’s stable now. The doctors are working on a treatment.”

“My mom’s in hospital? But…but she was fine. We just talked yesterday.”

There was a short pause before Matt sighed, “There’s a tumor in her brain. We didn’t tell you because she didn’t want you to worry. The doctors are not sure yet…it might be harmless.”

Harmless? How could it be harmless when her mom ended up in the freaking hospital?

She barely registered the rest of the things Matt was saying. In fact she barely registered anything at all, except for the growing dark pit in her stomach and her weak voice, speaking into the phone or in her own head she wasn’t sure, “I’m going home.”

She didn’t know when she’d hung up the phone, or how she’d dragged her suitcase out and started throwing everything she could see inside, or when Katherine started helping her without asking. All of these went around her in slow motion, but felt like a blur, like her head couldn’t keep up with her senses and her heart couldn’t keep up with her head.

“Katherine,” suddenly she heard herself speaking in an eerily calm voice, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can be modeling for you tonight.”

She had so many things to do. She had to finish packing, buy last-minute tickets, make arrangements with work, and pick up the replacement parts for her goddamn bookcase. She had too much to do and too little time to spare.

“Of course.” Katherine muttered. As if on second thought, she put a hand on Caroline’s shoulder, her eyes hesitant, “do you need me to tell Klaus for you?”

For a few seconds in her slow-flowing, mind-numbing, glacier-like time, pulsating lights and shadows of fountains, chandeliers, sunset, evening sky whirled through, but they were as colorful as they were fleeting.

“Kat…” Caroline breathed quietly, “I may not be coming back.”

* * *

Her giant suitcase grated over the uneven cement as Caroline trudged into the dark alley with heavy steps. She didn’t know why she felt the need to go there-as important as this place had grown to her, she had more urgent matters at hand. Plus she had all the pictures saved neatly in her phone, her digital secret garden that she could actually take with her anywhere. It should have been enough.

But the miraculous little spot called to her like a piece of her own fresh and bones. The pull was so strong that Caroline forwent her habit of always going to the airport with a few hours to spare.

Matt had messaged her sometime around that afternoon, telling her that her mom was awake and to not worry too much. She read the message and continued packing, not only her suitcase but all her remaining things in case she’d need Katherine to ship them to her later.

Aside from clothes and other essential items, she’d only packed her DVD of Casablanca with her. It was unnecessary, she knew-she could always stream it online if she ever wanted to re-watch and she doubted she’d have the time or spirit to do so. Nevertheless, it was the only “extra” thing she took with her from home, so it felt like full circle.

She pictured the life she would have as the sheriff’s daughter in Mystic Falls-how her life should be in the eyes of most town’s folk. She would probably take a bland job in the Mayor’s office, planning equally bland town events. Everyone would know her, they’d smile and even hug her when they meet at the Mystic Grill and gossip about her when she was not present-her outfit, her job, her _marriage_.

It felt suffocating thinking about it. Not deadly suffocating, but suffocating in the way of a humid September night in the south when your AC was not working, but you know autumn was around the corner and soon came winter and you just wanted to go back to sleep.

Caroline stopped in front of one of her favorite frames of painting on the warehouse wall and reached out her hand. Just touching the dried paints of blue and green made breathing easier for her. Smiling fondly, she traced the lines with her finger, knowing the directions by heart even if there was no streetlight.

It was almost ironic, considering the “we’ll always have Paris” line from the DVD tucked in her suitcase. Could she keep LA? Or did the city just cast her away without uttering a word, like it did with this abandoned neighborhood?

She was startled from her pondering as his voice sounded just behind her, “I thought you owed me a third date.”

“How did you know I was here?” Caroline should be surprised, but strangely she wasn’t. Not one bit. It was like subconsciously she was expecting him.

Klaus took one step closer until she could name every shade of blue in his eyes, his breath hot on her skin, “Didn’t you mean why I am here?”

But Caroline knew why he was here, so she just silently stared at him until he let out a relenting sigh.

“You didn’t show up for the class. Katherine told me what happened.” He looked hesitant and apologetic, his hands twitching at his sides as if dying to reach out.

Caroline didn’t want to hear what was bound to come, so she just grinned at him, “that’s Ms. Pierce to you.”

“Caroline…”

“She’s already thinking about failing you, you know?” She chuckled a little, but it sounded hollow in the reverberation of the alley, “ditching classes doesn’t exactly get you extra credits.”

Klaus sighed, his hands gently grabbing onto Caroline’s upper arms, the warmth instantly seeping through her coat and burned her so deliciously, “Caroline.”

“I’m leaving Klaus.”

She thought it would be like ripping off band-aids, one swift move and the pain would only diminish from then and there, but she wasn’t prepared for the millions of unvisited possibilities bleeding out of the invisible wound, flooding her with such devastating raw force that she had to lean into his arms a little to steady herself.

“Let me guess, one-way ticket?” Exasperation lined his words but Klaus’ hands supporting her were firm yet gentle.

Caroline stepped back outside of his arms, turning around to pace further down the wall, her eyes caressing the incredible artwork along the way, “on our first date,” the corners of her lips curled up at the word, “you asked me if there were any favorite spots of mine in the city. Well, this is it…and now also the fountain.” She whispered after a pause, suddenly not feeling like holding back anymore.

She heard the soft intake of breath behind her, but went on with her monologue, “but this was the first place that spoke to me, you know? I just got to LA at the time, and it must have been some cosmic intervention that I just bumped into all this art, and felt a connection.”

She spun around to face Klaus. Again his face was unreadable, the expression something between wistful longing and burning desire, and the little sparks of light in his eyes almost resembled pure delight. But still she didn’t stop her speech, “but whoever was painting these stopped…and I guess that’s just how things are.”

“Not necessarily.” Klaus spoke up, his eyes turning mischievous as he casually took her hand with one hand and her suitcase in the other, leading her forward, their hands close to humming on their own as the sensations ran wildly through.

Turning a corner, Klaus stopped in front of another side of walls. Stepping aside, he gestured his chin towards the once blank concrete, a mysterious smirk adorning his suspiciously smug face.

Looking over at the wall, Caroline gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth.

There in front of her, with vibrant colors, bold lines and raw passion, was a new painting she’d never seen before. The stunning hues of turquoise briefly outlined an intriguing oxymoron of a pattern, soft yet strong, stagnant still with hidden momentum, confined, but free. Looking closely Caroline could discern the painting for that of a woman’s body from shoulders to arms, but it could also be interpreted as a bird that was flapping its wings just about to take off.

It was truly breathtaking, as always.

“How…how did you…?” Traces and clues hidden under the surface of their past encounters tumbled around in her mind, but just out of reach for Caroline to pin them together.

Klaus lowered his head a little, and all Caroline could see was the dark curves of his eyelashes fluttering in a shy smile, “I wasn’t planning on ever coming back here. With all the business deals coming in, the fame and fortune as you so eloquently put, this…this became something that I could never really have, or so I thought,” his eyes snapped up, locking with hers like magnets, “until I met you, Caroline.”

The meaning of his words slowly sank in as a wave of mixing emotions rushed through her. Tears sprung to her eyes with the hot sting of a million pieces of broken stars, but Caroline could find no reason nor solution for it as she bit down hard on her trembling lips to stop them from spilling over.

Klaus silently approached her, trapping her between his hard chest and the painting that was now burned in her mind. _His_ painting. He traced a strand of Caroline’s hair framing her flushed cheek, but his eyes never left hers, “I’ve never believed in fate. All I know is that…now that you’ve showed up in my life, I don’t ever intend to let you go.”

Caroline flinched away from him, his feather-like touch weighing on her heavy as lead, “and I wish we could but…this may sound cliché, but it just isn’t the right time.”

“Oh trust me I know all about the ‘right time’, love.” Klaus let out a humorless laugh, “seven years ago I told myself there would be a ‘right time’ when I could make art the way I wanted, and look where that left me.”

Caroline sighed frustrated, her voice raising, “it’s not the same thing!”

“It’s exactly the same thing!” Klaus clenched his jaw, “look, you could tell yourself that LA isn’t for you and you’d wound up better back home. Hell, I should probably scramble to Tahiti like you suggested than wasting my time in a bloody night school.” That stung, and the hurt must have shown on her face because Klaus took one look at her and his face softened, “but we both know what we’ll be missing by doing what we’re supposed to.”

Caroline could feel her resolve crumbling and suddenly enraged, she pushed Klaus back to release herself, “what are you even trying to achieve here? My mom is in hospital. She needs me and I need to be there for her and that’s the prime priority for me right now. This isn’t a movie. I can’t just decide to stay in a city because I…”

She held off the last part of that sentence, too afraid to speak it out loud, her heart hammering in her chest as she watched Klaus’ eyes light up in the suspending silence.

“And I believe with all my heart that you should make that decision for yourself in time, taking all things into consideration, with an at least 3 page pros-and-cons list.” He smirked teasingly, “but I don’t think that time is now. You are still missing one major fact, sweetheart.”

“And what fact is that?”

Klaus cupped her face in his palms, “You don’t know what it is like to fall in love with me.”

Time came to a halt as Caroline indulged herself a moment in his all-consuming, all-encompassing eyes. It wouldn’t be so hard for his words to be true if she could spend the rest of her time doing nothing but losing herself in those blue seas. But…

“What if I can’t get there in the end?” Her voice sounded so small now, and Klaus rubbed his thumb gently over her cheekbones.

“Maybe we make it, maybe we don’t.” Smiling he repeated her own words at her, “but isn’t that the beauty of it all?”

Caroline thought about his words-her words really. She thought about all the things that could happen, the good, the bad. She thought about how his art alone offered her solace when she was starting off in a complete strange city, and how he was, and could be, so much more.

With a new-found lightness in heart, Caroline turned around to observe the painting again. The notion that Klaus painted it for her to one day find sent an endearing warm surge through her. As she stared at the painting longer, the lines seemed familiar somehow, like she was looking into a mirror, but not quite.

“Klaus,” Caroline spun around with widened eyes, “is that me?”

Klaus tilted his head, his hands crossing behind his back, “well you seemed rather peeved that I opted for your face instead of your back, so…”

Caroline was too busy examining the painting in this new light to mind his teasing. If the painting was beautiful and inspiring before, now it made her head spin, her knees weak and her chest filled up with all that it exuded-surprise, admiration, insecurity, desire, even lust.

“You really intended for me to see this?” The intimacy of the gesture shook her to her core.

Klaus stepped closer till her back was against his chest, his hands resting on her shoulders, “when we first met, you bared your very beautiful body to me-”

Caroline rolled her eyes, “and 20 other people, but go on.”

“-and I feel this yearning I couldn’t fight off…to bare my very soul to you.”

Her breath hitched as he traced the lines of her shoulders, “you know love, as mesmerizing as your face is,” he chuckled into the crook of her neck, “I fell for the stubborn lines of your shoulder blades first.”

She spun around, not satisfied with the only one affected, “well aren’t you full of pretty words tonight?” She outlined the curve of his lower lips with her index finger, suppressing the desire to replace it with her own lips, “and here I thought your hands are the talented parts of you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with loving pretty words, love.” His eyes grew dark, “as for my talented hands,” he gave her a suggestive smirk, “I'm sure they'll manage to find a way to prove themselves to you.”

Her body burned at those words, already feeling the phantom touch of his long fingers roaming all over her. She’d want nothing more than to take him and her suitcase back to her apartment right that second and…

Like a bucket of cold water splashing at her, Caroline jumped with a start, “but I need to go home, tonight. My mom…I have to…”

“Then go.” Klaus’ hands on her arms calmed her panicked stuttering, “look after your mom, and look after yourself. Just…promise you’ll give us a chance.” His eyes held her in place, “we are on our third date now. I’d like to flatter myself that there will be a fourth…and many more to come.”

Caroline’s heart quickened again, this time for a very different reason. She whispered quietly, her eyes now drawn to his slightly opened lips, “and how are you going to ensure that?”

She felt Klaus drawing nearer and nearer, the move agonizingly slow, but still invisible sparks crackled in the scorching air between their hungered lips. Their forehead touched, their nose leaning together, but all Caroline could focus on was the hot, steaming, electric _absence_ of his lips on her. They hovered there for a long minute, breathing each other in, soft moans lingering in their parched throats, but neither let them out to disrupt the ever-increasing but never-reaching closeness.

When Caroline felt her heart couldn’t take it anymore, she felt more than heard Klaus whispering, “I’ll save the rest for when we meet again.”

He finally drew back, and the night air felt so cold on her lips a shiver went down her spine. Caroline cleared her throat, trying to diffuse the tension that was still building all over her like flames, “just a kiss as leverage? You artists and your artistic thinking.”

Klaus chuckled, rolling her suitcase over and put his other hand over the small of her back, “you’d better give my _artistic thinking_ some credit, love. For now, we get you on that flight home. And next time,” just as they were about to start walking out of the alley, Klaus leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I'm going to paint murals inside you. You'll be able to feel every stroke...long and hard. And then you'll burst into a million vibrating colors-but only for my eyes to see, Caroline.”

He caught her when she almost swayed on her feet, smirking devilishly, “how’s that for leverage?”

As they walked into the silent night, leaving his paintings temporarily behind, Caroline felt like she was on stage once more. Spreading in front of her was miles of unknown darkness, and all she could feel was his eyes on her, steadying and freeing at the same time.

In that moment, there were only two things she was sure about.

One: she was going to come back to take a picture of _her_ painting.

And two: Katherine was right-the guy did know his foreplay.

**Author's Note:**

> On a side note, I planned that almost-kissing scene towards the end long before TO 5x12 aired. But it was a nice coincidence, lol.


End file.
